Three Ghosts
by Lovebites and Popcorn
Summary: Axel thinks he’s got nothing figured out, even after everything unfolds right in front of his eyes. — AxelRoxasXion


**Three Ghosts**

_Axel thinks he's got nothing figured out, even after everything unfolds right in front of his eyes. __**AkuRoku, with a dash of Xion.**_

**_Author's note: _**_I'm only using what we know of Xion so far from the trailers, so I suppose this should be considered Alternate Universe. Fair warning: I know you'll find this mainly to be an AkuRoku fic, but if you read between the lines, it's more AkuRokuShi (Ax/Rox/Xion), really._

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**_1. Beginnings_**

Sometimes, all it takes is one small glance from the corner of another's eye to really get you thinking about things you never thought would ever enter your mind. Axel catches the kid's eye during his first day and makes it out to be like an accident, but really, it isn't. And the redhead suddenly imagines purple skies and orange sunsets and rough diamonds in the dust.

That starts everything, puts it all in motion. Something akin to rusted clockwork.

And like innocent children, they get along with painted grins and itchy fingers. They experiment shamelessly with unhidden curiosity. It's not like Xemnas will care, and it's not like they'll ever tell their little third wheel companion.

But Xion knows anyway. And in silence, she wishes them well, from the bottom of her non-existent heart, even though she spends her days moping forlornly all of the time. But they don't know any of this, so in a way it doesn't really matter, and she's okay with this.

* * *

**_2. Catalyst_**

And maybe Roxas is shy, Axel thinks, and the kid knows there's nothing to gain through their escapades no matter how fleeting the passion and thrill. So little is the faith Axel has in the boy that he's deeply surprised to find he has any in him at all.

And maybe it's bad luck that Xion finds them fooling around in Axel's bedroom one night. Not that she's ever been kept in the dark about the things going on behind her back. But there she stands at the doorway, a strange stirring low in the pit of her stomach and her cheeks burning hotly as she witnesses the offensively lewd scene play out before her. It seems like Roxas is riding between Axel's thighs and screaming multiple expletives into the air that make no sense, whilst Axel is moaning the boy's name over and over in short, choked gasps like a mantra.

And when Xion's breath hitches as soon as Axel loses himself with a shudder and a dark cry, it's like a switch has been flicked, because Roxas' back stiffens all of a sudden. And Xion's personal smile is replaced by a well-timed look of feigned shock and hurt when the boy whips around to regard her. And in haste, she bows her head apologetically and exits the room, shutting the door loudly behind her.

And everything resumes as per normal.

* * *

**_3. Deviation_**

Except after that, nothing really _is_ normal, and Roxas doesn't look Xion directly in the eye anymore. His attitude changes and he takes a strange liking to staring blankly at walls and stone and sometimes, mirrors. It's like he thinks he's wounded Xion somehow and is suddenly guilt-ridden. Axel doesn't quite care what the silly girl thinks, even though secretly, he really does.

And Xion eventually counts to fourteen hundred and twenty-one under her breath using the fingers on her hands before she packs her bags of thin air and walks away through the midnight gates of the world beyond—vanishes much like a fancy dream. Because she's had enough of all the suffocating nothingness in the atmosphere.

By which time, Axel panics. He wants to bring her home again, because something niggles at the back of his mind and tells him that there isn't enough time left before the world disintegrates around them all and leaves nothing but dust and desolate memories.

Maybe not even those.

So he feels fear for the first and last time.

* * *

**_4. Laughter_**

Five venomous words strung together like beads of neon, each one a sharpened dagger straight through his chest, though they barely hurt, if not at all. He briefly wonders about the scars they'd leave behind, though. He's sure there'll be those at least.

"_No one would miss me."_

And Roxas, heartless and made of omnipresent echoes, replays an ugly nightmare to the redhead and disappears off into the dark at long last, never returning in true.

Axel screams back at the shadows, because yes, goddammit, fuck, fuck, _fuck._ He would.

_He would, he would, he would. _

And then he blindly falls to the ground on his knees and slams a curled fist against the pavement and laughs loudly, hysterically, up at the sky.

It's more of a sob, but he knows he cannot cry.

It makes him feel all the more as though he's drowning.

* * *

**_5. Quell_**

He likes to think he hates Sora with every fibre of his being. Likes to. But he doesn't _actually_ hate him. That would defeat the purpose of his existence. Or so he now sorely wants to believe.

He kind of sees Kairi as a friend, though, on a certain level that is more abstract than anything else (for reasons only he can decipher). Because you see, she's left out. Left behind. Abandoned. Like a little puppy unwanted by her master, or in this case, _masters_. It's something he relates to, you understand. Of course, he doesn't live to see the end, where the two people who mean something to her eventually return with warm smiles.

Which goes to show that Axel's fate is, in effect, the complete opposite of Kairi's.

Maybe he finds it stupid and just a little ironic. But Axel never cared much for irony. Because destiny paved his way in second-rate silver, not gold. For that, he resents.

* * *

**_6. Collapse_**

Xion is only dust to him now. And Roxas is just a mere memory that meant nothing to him and means nothing still.

And they're both fading away swiftly.

It makes him a tad annoyed that he's the last to go. The one to hang on so tightly for nothing at all, really.

At least he can finally say that he's lived some kind of life, however monochrome and disgraceful it may have been.

It takes him awhile. But eventually, as the curtain falls and his name is all but forgotten in the wind, he fades away with them.

_**end.**_

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_**Author's note: **__I only just noticed, whilst writing this, how much Kairi and Axel, our two wonderful redheads, are complete opposites. Kairi gets her two friends back, and Axel loses both of his. Coincidence? I think not._

_This was my first attempt at writing a fic with Xion. Hope I didn't murder her character too much. _

_Review? :)_


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